


Friendly Fire

by Bastet5



Series: The Wild Hunt [10]
Category: FBI: Most Wanted (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Friendly Fire, Gen, Guilt, Late Night Conversations, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced past abuse, Shooting Accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24262675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bastet5/pseuds/Bastet5
Summary: May 2018It was the mission that would haunt Kateri off-and-on for the rest of her life.A brutal fugitiveThe worst of battlegroundsAgents downThe suspect went down, but so did her partner.It was Kateri who pulled the trigger.
Relationships: Clinton Skye & Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Wild Hunt [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678864
Comments: 25
Kudos: 12





	Friendly Fire

It was a mission that Kateri would never forget for the rest of a life, a mission that would haunt her and her nightmares for years, rivaling even her kidnapping and Kenny’s near-smushing by a fridge six months earlier. The team was in Connecticut pursuing their latest fugitive, a lowlife named Mitchell, who was wanted for a list of crimes that made Kateri’s skin crawl. His underworld connections, which were outside the realm or reach of Kateri’s know-how, had given him a lead for a time, but after five days of tracking him across New York and then across Connecticut, they had finally caught up to him in an old, abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the industrial district of a large city in the western part of the state.

The warehouse was sprawling in size with row upon row of towering metal shelves with abandoned bins, some full, some empty. Everywhere there were lengthy shadows and a thousand places where a man could hide or spring out in an ambush. A brisk wind rustled through broken window panes adding a soft white noise that did nothing to aid the agents, concealing the soft noises that hinted of a coming ambush.

Two entrances stood at separate ends of the warehouse, one beside a large freight door. Kateri, on later thought, should have realized that something bad was going to happen when she and Clinton ended up on the two separate teams, one for each door. _As if we hadn’t learned already that splitting up is jinxing_. The Task Force members had been divided between the two doors with a large contingent of S.W.A.T. with each, Jess, Kenny, and Clinton at the freight door and Barnes, Kateri, and Hana at the public entrance on the other side of the warehouse.

 _Funny how that split worked out_.

The warehouse was eerily quite, save for the wind, and dark for a few moments after Kateri and the others first breached the door. Then the shouts of the agents—a litany of familiar phrases, “FBI!” “Put your hands where we can see them!” “Down on the ground”—broke the silence, and the tactical lights on their weapons pierced the inky black darkness.

The two teams slowly cleared toward each other, not the most ideal situation, but they did not want to risk leaving Mitchell an opening out which to rabbit. Status updates slowly filtered across the coms, and Kateri slowly began to feel more uneasy as the minutes passed. From surveillance video and the GPS on his cellphone, the team knew Mitchell was somewhere within the warehouse.

 _The somewhere is the problem_.

The cavernous building was … _cavernous_ … with thousands of places to hide at floor level and above, place after place he could hide and open fire on the law enforcement officers hunting him.

Yet, slowly he was running out of space, and Mitchell, from all they knew, was not the type to go down easily when he was cornered.

 _I’ve got a feeling this isn’t going to be a capture_ , Kateri thought to herself as she finished a row and carefully cleared the path between it and the next set of storage shelves. Lincoln, a SWAT officer, was at her back, and she could just hear the sound of his boots on the floor and his soft breaths. Her eyes strained to see beyond the beam of the tac light on her Glock 19, and the pounding of her heart was loud in her own ears.

_It’s like when all the power goes out in your neighborhood at night, and you can’t see your hand two inches in front of your face._

_At home, there’s nobody waiting to start shooting!_

_Even in my area of the Bronx!_

Clearing this warehouse was especially dangerous, because the shelves were built in such a way that they could be climbed if someone was athletic enough, which Mitchel unfortunately was. That meant that everyone not only had to clear the main floor but watch for attacks from above and try to clear the shelves, as well.

_Key word is try!_

_This place is a disaster waiting to happen._

Kateri’s dour thoughts were almost prophetic, since minutes later everything went sideways in a split second.

Kateri had almost reached the end of another row, at the end of which was a larger than usual gap, big enough for large moving equipment to pass, before the next row of metal shelves. From close by, there was a sudden crash, and then a woman’s voice cried out in pain.

“Hana!” Kateri exclaimed, immediately identifying her teammates’ voice. Swearing under her breath, she increased her pace, Lincoln on her six. The two moved forward, clearing the floor and shelves around them as quickly as they dared.

Kateri reached the opening first and frantically scanned for her teammate, sweeping the ground with her tac light in a quick search pattern. On the other side of the aisle and one row over just outside the creepy shadows of the shelving, Hana was lying sprawled on the floor on her stomach.

 _Bloody h**l._ There was the instinctive stab of fear that pierced Kateri’s heart seeing her teammate down.

A split second later, Kateri noted that there was no obvious pool of blood surrounding the smaller woman like there would have been if Hana had been shot, and that she was trying to push herself to her knees and only half succeeding. Kateri could hear a man’s voice nearby, but the rustling wind and the echoes off the metal shelves made it hard to judge where exactly the noise was coming from.

Clearing what of the exposed areas she could see, Kateri moved forward toward her friend, trusting Lincoln to watch her back as she attempted to get the injured agent to cover. Kateri lowered her gun as she got close to Hana— _don’t sweep her!_ —her gaze dropping toward the floor, just as Hana finally succeeded in pushing herself to her knees. One side of her face was coated in blood, which was dripping onto the grimy floor.

Suddenly, there was a flash of movement a little ways in front and off to one side, and Hana screamed a warning, “Watch out!!”

Kateri whirled towards the direction she had originally been clearing, her gun coming back up. A man was emerging from the shadows two rows down, a handgun pointed toward Hana.

It was Mitchell. There was a look of vicious glee, and Kateri wondered how someone could take such great delight in death and mayhem.

A shot rang out, and Kateri instinctively ducked with a flinch, even though the shot went wide, but a split second later she heard Lincoln go down behind her with a cry of pain. _Ricochet_ , her mind automatically catalogued.

For a millisecond, the world slowed down to a grinding halt as a multitude of thoughts screamed through Kateri’s head at a breakneck pace.

_Where are the others?_

_Where are the others?_

Kateri knew Clinton with the rest of the group coming from the freight door was clearing toward where she currently was and would have increased the pace at the sounds of the fight and then the shot ringing out.

 _He won’t miss a second time_. Mitchell’s death-toll was large enough to know that he was not incompetent with a gun. _Hana’s down for the count. She’s too exposed._

Without knowing her teammates’ exact positions, there was a risk in shooting, but in this situation there was a much bigger risk if she didn’t shoot.

_You’ve got to take the risk if you don’t want to lose your friends._

_I’m the only one with a shot_.

_Take the shot!_

_TAKE IT!_

Another shot rang out but missed Kateri. _He’s playing with us!_ She suddenly realized. _The others are down, and he saw me hesitate._ Without another moment’s hesitation, Kateri lined up her sight picture in a smooth, practiced move, tac light lighting up Mitchell’s figure like a spotlight, and pulled the trigger.

The crack of the gun echoed in the cavernous warehouse and made her ears ring and ache with pain.

Her shot hit center mass, but while Mitchell staggered, he kept on coming. Kateri would have gaped if the situation was not so dire. _Is he on drugs? Body armor?_ _At least his attention is firmly on me now._ And that it was. Mitchell had pivoted away from Hana toward Kateri, and he shot again. _He thinks he’s got the advantage now, and he’s playing with me_. Kateri ducked instinctively, as the bullet whistled by much closer this time.

Again, she pulled the trigger.

Again, another center mass hit.

Again, Mitchell staggered but kept on coming, the look on his face switching to one of rage. He was closing fast, too fast.

Before Mitchell could take another shot or another step, Kateri switched her point of aim for an area that obviously had no body armor: his head. She needed to stop the threat immediately, before more officers were hurt, before he could get close enough for a hand-to-hand fight. Mitchell was taller and larger than Kateri was, and even with her experience in multiple martial arts and skills at the dirty, scrappy form of street-fighting she had learned in earlier years, Kateri was not sure she could win in a physical fight where muscle and sheer size could play as much of a role as skill. A successful knee or pelvis shot would drop him in his tracks, but there was no guarantee he would drop his gun when she dropped him, and for all she knew, he had body armor on his legs like at the North Hollywood Shootout in ‘97.

Each of his play shots were getting closer.

_Only one more chance._

_Or I'll be the next to drop._

Mitchell was getting too close to Kateri and the defenseless Hana in front of her and Lincoln behind her. _Don’t even know how bad he is_. Mitchell had to be stopped then and there.

_Only one more chance._

A smooth double-tap. Two more cracks that echoed through the warehouse.

Illuminated by the beam of her tac light, a red hole appeared in the center of Mitchell’s forehead, as the back of his head exploded in a spray of gore that painted the area behind him with blood, bone, and brain matter. There was a reason Kateri could never stomach eating melon. It always made her think of exploding heads.

A split second later, another shout rung out. Kenny’s voice, a cry of surprise, horror, “Clinton!!”

Kateri’s heart stopped, and her blood roared in her ears, which were already ringing from the explosion of gunfire.

She knew that cry, knew that tone of voice.

She knew what it meant.

_What have I done?_

As Mitchell collapsed to the floor like a puppet with cut strings, his gun dropping from nerveless fingers, backup was revealed behind him. Clinton was staggering backwards, back against the corner of a shelving unit. One hand was clasped to his shoulder, red blood already painting his fingers. Kateri met her partner’s eyes from afar, his look of surprise and confusion mingling with her look of gut-wrenching horror.

_What have I done?_

_God have mercy._

_What have I done?_

Her brain froze solid for a moment, thoughts screeching to a halt, stuck on the same horrified refrain, _What have I done?_ Kateri could almost not comprehend the enormity of what she had done, even by accident. _I shot my own partner_. Her feet were frozen in place, and she surely would have been a prime target if there had been more hostiles around.

SWAT officers who had appeared from nowhere out of the darkness were checking Mitchell’s body. Mechanically and on instinct, Kateri holstered her own gun and knelt at Hana’s side, pulling a small pen-light from her pocket. Hana was sickly pale beneath the blood on her face. Kateri helped her to a seated position and checked her teammate’s eyes with shaky hands. Hana seemed dazed, and her pupils were unequal in size. _Concussion_ , the still-functioning part of Kateri’s brain diagnosed, _From the noise and the blood, Mitchell probably body-slammed her into one of these shelves_.

“You’ll be alright, Hana. Just stay still. Help’s coming.”

The other woman nodded shakily and squeezed her eyes shut, probably against a dizzy spell or against nausea. Her cheeks had a green tinge to them.

_I feel that_.

Kateri pushed herself out of her crouch back to her feet. Kenny was kneeling by her partner’s side, blocking her view of Clinton. Guilt and fear kept her feet from moving towards them, and she turned back towards Lincoln. A big black man who was built like a football player, he had been hit in the leg by the ricochet from Mitchell’s gun. He was sitting awkwardly on the floor, clutching his thigh and swearing colorfully.

“Let me see, let me see,” Kateri said, kneeling by his side and sticking her light between her teeth so she had both hands free.

“Are you hurt?” Lincoln asked, his voice tight with pain, as Kateri pulled a tourniquet from her stashed supplies in one of her pockets— _thank God for cargo pants and their pockets_. The bullet wound was leaking blood at an impressive rate, though it was not spurting. Even so, here was already a pool of blood under his leg that had accumulated in the short minute since the shooting had ended. _Didn’t hit an artery_ , Kateri guess as she tightened the tourniquet above the wound. Lincoln’s face went pinched with pain, and he launched into a new array of profanity.

Lincoln’s question from a moment before made Kateri’s realize that her hands were shaking, which made it difficult to get the tourniquet tight enough— _not too tight!_ —shaking that went along with the knot in her gut.

Kateri shook her head, “No. I didn’t get hit.” She had suffered no physical injury, but she was a far cry from alright. Her brain was waring with her heart, wracked by guilt; she restrained herself from looking over her shoulder at where her partner was, down because of her.

_Go! Check on him. This is Clinton’s for pity’s sake._

_You shot him. He’s your partner, and you shot him._

_Go._

_You’ve done enough damage for a month._

_The medic’ll take care of him, and you’ll get in the way._

_You’ve hurt him enough._

_Just let the others work_.

Just thinking that again made her stomach lurch. She wanted to go off somewhere and be thoroughly and quietly sick, but there was work to be done first. What pride she had would not allow her to be sick in public either, so Kateri swallowed hard, trying to keep her stomach where it belonged.

_I shot my partner._

_He’s the best friend you’ve ever had and the closest thing you’ve had to a father in decades._

_And you shot him_.

Moments later, the medics arrived, swarming around the injured agents, and Kateri backed well out of the way. She glanced around the scene—still avoiding looking at her partner, though she could hear his voice—and saw that all was under control and that she would only get in the way if she tried to do more. Kateri unhooked her comm from her ear and disappeared back into the towering rows of shelving.

Finally alone in a dark, dank corner, Kateri gave in to the burgeoning nausea rolling in her gut since she had seen her partner fall and was thoroughly sick. When her stomach had finished heaving out all she had eaten for the last month, or so it seemed, Kateri swiped any remaining strands of bile from her mouth and chin with a handkerchief and spit several times to clear the awful taste from her mouth. Her stomach felt like she had been sucker-punched, and the heaving had given her a pounding headache.

 _I need water._ Having the taste remains in her mouth was almost enough to make her heave again. Kateri badly wanted to rinse her mouth.

Despite the warmth of the room and her physical exertion, Kateri shivered. She felt cold all over, and her heart was pounding away in her ears, and her hands were still shaking like she had the palsy.

 _You’re having a panic attack_. The warehouse even with the shelving was not small enough to trigger her claustrophobia, but high stress situations especially combined with her fear for her partner— _like before … with Kenny_ —and her guilt was a major trigger for the PTSS she still struggled with at times even five months plus after her kidnapping.

_Bloody h**l._

_Really not the time or place to have one!_

_Clinton usually talks me out of them_.

That thought did nothing to help her calm down and only made things worse, and it was nearly fifteen minutes before she calmed down enough to go back to the trucks.

The ambulances for the injured men had already departed by the time Kateri got outside, and the rest of her teammates—those uninjured—had also disappeared. Only the SWAT officers and various other cops from the local PD were left, milling around and doing various tasks that Kateri was too mentally and physically exhausted to identify.

“Hey, Agent Wood,” a voice called.

Kateri flinched in surprise, her nerves shot, and turned toward the voice It was a SWAT officer who had called her name, but he must have been with the other team, since she did not recognize his face. Noticing her hands were still shaking, she stuffed them into the pockets of her jacket, hiding the evidence.

“Yes?” She replied, internally surprised at the steadiness of her voice. _You’re a good fake._ Kateri reminded herself. Time undercover in her previous line of work with the FBI had taught her the necessity of that. Undercover, the wrong reaction, the wrong words, the smallest mistakes could blow your cover in an instant and get you killed.

“One of your teammates was looking for you. They all went on to the hospital when they couldn’t find you,” the officer said. He had a deep, gruff voice and a craggy face.

_Yes, I imagine they are looking for me._

_Jess is going to kill me_.

“Which one?” Kateri asked, trying to ignore the turmoil of her own internal voice.

“The black lady. Barnes, wasn’t it?”

Kateri nodded, “Thanks. I needed a minute. Could I get a ride back to our bus? And get some water, too, if you have some?”

“Sure, we’ll give you a ride.” He said, making a couple of hand signals to one of his other teammates, who a moment later jogged over with a water bottle for Kateri.

With a murmured word of thanks, Kateri gratefully took the water bottle and quickly rinsed her mouth out to dispel the lingering taste of her own vomit. Still shivering slightly despite the warmth of the evening, she tucked the bottle into one of the less-full pockets of her cargo pants and headed toward the truck that would take her back to her home-away-from-home. The drive back to the bus was quiet, at least on Kateri’s part. The other SWAT officers in the car were talking among themselves, but Kateri stared blindly out the window, lost in her own trouble thoughts, eyes seeing but not comprehending the passing scenery.

The bus was quiet and deserted as Kateri climbed up the steps and entered. _Which is good, because I do not feel fit for company at the moment._ Deserted backpacks. Jess’ disgustingly honey-filled tea, which he had been in the middle of making when the call came in. Her partner’s coffee abandoned by his seat. Kenny’s snack of the moment. The bus seemed frozen in time, a thought that was more evidence of Kateri’s mood than a new dismal reality.

_No one’s dead, even though you managed to shoot your own partner._

Guilt warred with annoyance at her own weakness and anger at the mistake that could have proved deadly.

Kateri ghosted through the bus until she came to the small, open corner where some of them, usually Kenny, would take quick cat-naps—if you didn’t mind sitting up. She dropped her jacket to the floor and then sunk to a seat with a groan. Forcing herself to take small sips from her water bottle to replenish the fluids that she had lost puking— _the last thing you need today is to get dehydrated and risk fainting or something undignified_ —she leaned her head back against the wall. _I’m so tired_.

Now that Kateri had time to sit down and process, the full enormity of what she had done— _accidentally_ , one side of her brain tried to remind her—started to fully hit home.

_You shot your own partner_.

_You shot your own partner_.

_Jess’s going to kill me or rip you up one side and down the other. Clinton’s his brother-in-law, for heaven’s sake._

Not that much her boss could say would be worse than her own self-recrimination.

_IA’s going to be fun._

_Oh, ***, you might get kicked off the team_.

Aside from the fears that stemmed from her claustrophobia, Kateri’s two worst fears were probably losing her team, the closest thing she had ever had to a real family in decades—considering most of her formative years had been spent in a succession of foster homes—and not working with her team anymore. Despite a succession of bad bosses and team leaders, she had excelled at undercover work in her earlier years with the Bureau, but doing undercover work for years had not helped her put down roots or give her a place to call home by any stretch of the imagination. This team had.

Kateri began to weep, her shoulders shaking and tears trickling down her cheeks, but she made no sound. She wept and wept until her chest grew tight and she could barely take a breath.

_I’m sorry._

_I’m so sorry._

And if the day could not get any worse, her spiraling, strong emotions—fear, guilt, grief—sent her sprawling into the second panic attack in the last couple of hours. When Kateri got herself under enough control to even out her breathing and glance at her watch, it was almost 10pm. A little over two hours had passed since the warehouse, since … she cut herself off from finishing that mental train.

_No more working on beating your own record for most panic attacks in a 24-hour period._

Kateri, exhausted mentally and physically beyond measure, loosed her knees from her clutching embrace, stretched her legs out in front of her, and tipped her head back against the wall. It seemed like she had only closed her eyes for a moment when there was a noise at the door of the bus, and Kateri started awake, her heart pounding in her throat. One hand went instinctively to her gun still on her hip, but then full awareness hit, and she pulled her hand back into her lap.

The door opened.

Barnes appeared, scanning the inside of the bus quickly. She looked as tired as Kateri felt. There were dark bags under her eyes. Her makeup was smudged, and limp strands of hair were doing their best to escape from her usually immaculate hair.

“There you are. Bloody ****, Kat, haven’t you been looking at your phone?” Barnes asked. The worry and relief in her face belayed the anger in her voice.

Kateri shook her head, trying to clear a few lingering cobwebs from her brain. She pulled one leg back up to her chest and fished around in one of the pockets of her cargo pants for her work phone. Turning the screen on, she noticed that she had ten unread text messages and five missed calls.

_Oh! Bloody h**l_.

“No, sorry. It’s on silent, and I’ve been … distracted.”

_Understatement of the millennia_

Barnes dropped the bag slung over her shoulder to the floor and pulled one of the chairs over to she could sit near Kateri. “We couldn’t find you outside, and no one saw you at the hospital,” Barnes paused and looked over the other woman with growing concern, “Are you hurt? You look terrible.”

 _And that surprises you?_ The worse Kateri felt, the worse the filter on her brain—and her mouth—was.

_I shot my partner._

_I shot Clinton._

“What?? No, I’m not hurt … physically,” Kateri clunked her head back against the wall again and regretted doing so instantly because her head was still pounding. _You need to get up and take something._ Finding the energy to move would be a struggle. “After … what happened inside … I needed a minute, and by the time I got outside, the rest of you and the ambulances were gone. A couple SWAT officers gave me a ride back here.”

“And you didn’t come to the hospital? We’ve been looking for you. Your partner’s worried about you,” Barnes replied, seeming to be a cross between flummoxed, concerned, and annoyed.

_About me?_

_I shot him._

Kateri gave a sarcastic snort, focusing her gaze past Barnes’ right shoulder, “I learned something new today. Apparently shooting one’s own partner is as good a trigger for a panic attack as claustrophobia and PTSS,” her voice shook, and she swiped violently at her suddenly stinging eyes, “I shot him, bloody h**l The last thing he needs to be doing right now is worrying about me.” Her voice was full of self-recrimination.

“Clinton would beg to disagree,” Barnes said, shifting from the chair to the floor beside Kateri with a groan, “I’m too old for this.”

That comment drew a watery laugh from Kateri that almost turned into a sob. Barnes was not that many years older than Kateri herself.

 _Can’t put it off_.

“How are they?” Kateri finally forced the words out of a dry throat.

“Everyone got lucky tonight. No serious injuries. Your partner’s just got a flesh wound. Some stitches, a bandage, and pain meds, and he’s fine. Hana’s got a concussion and a deep laceration on her head, so the hospital’s keeping her overnight to be safe, and Lincoln has some muscle damage but should be fine after PT.”

A sigh of utter relief. _Thank God!_ “I was afraid it had been worse.” Kateri whispered.

“You could have called.”

Kateri flinched. _Amidst my panic attacks and shaking hands, that would have worked well._ “I was too busy having panic attacks,” was her simple reply.

Barnes swore, noticing the emphasis on the “attacks” plural part, and her face and tone softened. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

Most everyone on the team had their own mental struggles in some way or another, some more serious than others. Kenny had his PTSS after his time with the Army and his anger issues. Kateri had her claustrophobia and PTSS, and her teammates had learned that sometimes on bad days, trying to touch her could make a situation worse—only Clinton and Kenny knew why—and the others usually let Clinton talk her down or calm her down.

_They understand why I flinch away sometimes._

Kateri nodded, so Barnes wrapped an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders, rubbing a hand soothingly up and down her arm. “How many?” She asked.

“Two so far,” Kateri replied quietly, drawing her knees back up to her chest, “And I puked my guts out back at the warehouse. I’m working on a new record.”

_Don’t think about your record or how you get it or about the bloody NYPD._

_Might send you into a third._

“Well, let’s try to put a moratorium on that record, shall we,” Barnes said in her best, brisk, second-in-command voice.

_I wish you ordering me would make things that easy._

“How did you find me?” Kateri asked after a minute of silence. Shivering slightly, she wrapped her arms around her abdomen in a self-hug and curled her fingertips into the opposite pockets.

_Why am I still so cold?_

“After you kept not replying to our calls or texts, we were starting to get rather concerned, Clinton especially, so Kenny tracked your phone via the Google find-your-phone app.”

_That would usually be Hana’s job._

That drew another small watery laugh, but then Kateri abruptly sobered. “Is Jess going to kill me?” She asked softly, finally meeting Barnes’ eyes, the eyes of the team second who was the boss’ frequent shadow and probably, save for Clinton, knew him the best.

_I shot my partner._

_Wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to kill me … or kick me off the team._

“I think your partner would have a problem with that, but the answer is definitely not. Jess wants answers. We all want to know what went wrong on this op. We’ll need to have a long debrief when everyone is up to it, and IA will need to talk to you, since this was friendly fire, but there will be no murder involved.”

“Might be justifiable homicide,” Kateri tried to quip, “I almost can’t believe it,” her voice nearly broke, “I shot my own partner.”

_Bloody h**l._

“Did you mean to?”

The resulting “Bloody h***, no!!” was emphatic in tone and explosive in volume, and Kateri jerked violently away until she noticed that Barnes was trying to make a point, and then she slowly settled back down onto the ground.

“I know that. Jess knows that. Clinton knows that, too. We all know that. It was an accident in a chaotic scene in bad lighting. We’re just lucky the consequences weren’t worse,” Barnes replied.

_Like one or more of us were dead._

“I never saw him,” Kateri said, shifting so she was sitting perpendicular to the other agent and could better see her face, “I had no idea backup had arrived until Kenny cried out and Mitchell collapsed and I saw Clinton stagger backwards.”

_I had no bloody idea where the others were even with coms._

_One aisle looks like another, and I certainly was loosing track of our position in the warehouse._

Barnes made a hmm sound and, now that Kateri seemed calmer, returned to her previous seat in the chair. Pushing herself back to one of the desks, she fished around for a pad of paper. “Do you want to give me the cliff-notes version from your point-of-view, Kat? We’ll need a full debrief later. I’ve already heard bits and pieces from the others.”

_I’d rather not, but best to get it over with._

Kateri scrubbed her hands across her face, thinking of the best way to start things.

_I’m so tired_. Panic attacks always wore her out physical and emotionally.

_My brain feels like molasses_ _… or rather is moving at the speed of …_

For lack of a better place to start, Kateri started at the entrance to the warehouse. She ran through the events quickly until she got up to the point where she heard Hana cry out.

“Lincoln and I double-timed it forward. The next gap between rows, we found Hana. She was down like she’d gotten body-slammed by someone, but there was no one else in sight. She was trying to get up but not really succeeding, so I went forward to get her to cover, while Lincoln covered me. Her backup was nowhere in sight.”

Barnes broke in quickly at that point, “I saw him at the hospital. They’d gotten separated inside. That place was like a maze.”

_Labyrinth._

_Every aisle looked like the next._

_Needed a bloody map and GPS._

“That it was,” Kateri agreed, “A very dark maze. So suddenly, Hana shouts a warning, and Michell comes out of the shadows, his gun pointed in Hanna’s direction, or so I thought. Before I could get my gun up, Mitchell shot at us but missed, but Lincoln got hit by the ricochet. With Hanna and Lincoln down, I was the only one left still in fighting shape. I knew the others would be coming when they heard shots, but I couldn’t wait for backup. Mitchell seemed to be toying with us, but he was close enough he could easily hit us anytime he wanted. Hana was down. Lincoln was down. If I went down, they were defenseless. So I took the shot. I hit him twice in the chest, and he just staggered and kept on coming. Maybe he was on drugs or had body armor, I don’t know, but I didn’t hold a candle for my chances in a hand-to-hand fight if got closer, ‘specially if he was on drugs, and he was like half-again my size. I needed to drop him then and there. Leg body armor is a thing, so I went for a head shot.”

_Word vomit._

“Kenny and Clinton both thought you shot twice.” Barnes asked, making notes in short-hand, sometimes tapping her pen on the table or her leg.

Kateri nodded, “I did. Mitchell was so close to Hana. I needed him to go down and stay down. I was acting on instinct, and I usually go for a double-tap anyway. There wasn’t time to really stop and think things through.” She shook her head, “I hit him the first time, and his head exploded, and it must have been my second shot that missed. Kenny cried out. Mitchell collapsed, and then I saw Clinton, staggering backwards, and that was when I knew …”

_I shot my partner._

Kateri’s voice broke, and it was a long minute before she could continue, voice rough, “I’d shot my own partner.”

“Well,” replied Barnes after a moment’s thought, “from the Cliff Notes’ version, at least, I’m not sure I would have done anything differently. You had to make the best of a bad situation, and if you’d hesitated to fire, one or more of you could be dead.”

_Rock and a hard place._

_Was no good choice._

“Yea, but still…” Kateri’s voice wavered at the end. She intellectually understood that she had done what had to be done and had made the best decision she could in a bad situation with no time to think. Understanding something and accepting it were two vastly different things, however.

“Since Clinton, of all people, isn’t angry with you, you need to stop doing the guilt-trip, self-flagellation thing,” Barnes said, slightly reprovingly.

Kateri gave another snort that was almost a sob, “Easier said than done.”

_Especially for me_

Barnes pushed herself to her feet and extended a hand to help Kateri up, “Kenny’s staying at the hospital with Hana tonight, and Jess is taking Clinton back to the motel, so why don’t I drive you back, too? You need some sleep, Kat.” The team had been in the area for about two days now and had gotten a motel room so some people could get some rest. The others had to sleep in the beds on the bus.

_I am so tired._

_Try exhausted._

Kateri gratefully took the proffered hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet off the floor. “Okay, just give me a minute first.” She was too tired to argue, knowing she wouldn’t win, even though she felt somewhat hesitant to see her partner.

_Try extremely_.

Barnes nodded, “Five minutes, and then I’m coming looking for you. I’ll be by the car.”

_Often the threat was just a threat, serving to incentivize us to hurry up._

_This time she actually will come lookin’._

In this situation, Kateri knew that the other woman would truly come searching for herif she was not actually exiting the bus within the next five minutes. Barnes departed, and the exhausted agent took the chance to attempt to neaten herself up. Rummaging through her backpack, she came up with a hairbrush and a rag. She smoothed down her clothes, combed out her hair and, with the last of her water, washed her face and pressed the cool, damp rag to her eyes.

_Any help’ll be good._

_I must look like a fright._

Almost exactly five minutes after Barnes had left, Kateri stepped out of the bus, pulling the door shut behind her. Barnes was leaning on the hood of her car, talking quietly into her cellphone. She finished the call and put her cellphone away before Kateri came into hearing distance.

“Ready to go?”

Kateri nodded silently. Barnes let the silence linger, and Kateri spent the too short car ride to the hotel staring out the window at the passing scenery, her head resting on her glass. Her fingers mindlessly fiddled with her watch.

_What does one even say to your partner after you shot him?_

_How do I even start?_

The state of not even knowing what to say to her partner anymore was unusual, frightening, dumbfounding, flabbergasting. _Pick an adjective._ Granted Kateri and Clinton were not exactly the most talkative members of the team, yet ever since they had become partners they had always gotten along well. They had survived plenty of stake-outs and long car trips in companionable silence and had just as many conversations about hobbies, horses, hunting, the job, the trials of the job, exit plans, etc. Clinton was her closest friend, her partner, and the closest thing she had to a father, but now …

_I feel like I stabbed myself in the heart._

_How do I even begin to make this right?_

By some chance or mischance, Jess’ car was just pulling out of the motel parking lot as Barnes and Kateri entered. In the dim lighting that lit the exterior of the building, Kateri saw her partner standing by the stairs that led up to the second floor where the team’s room was. Probably having seen the new arrivals, Clinton had stopped to wait for her like the gentleman he was, which meant that Kateri didn’t have to walk across a creepy, dark parking lot without someone else there but also mean that she couldn’t put off their meeting.

_Stop being ridiculous_ , one side of her brain reproved her.

At the same time, the guilty half reminded her, _You shot him, for heaven’s sake_!

Barnes dropped her off and then departed, leaving Kateri to trudge the 30 feet to the bottom of the steps where her partner was waiting. The air had grown cooler since Kateri had last been out, and a few shivers raced up her frame, as she buried her free hand, the one not holding her backpack in place over one shoulder, into her pocket. As she got closer, Kateri let her eyes flick up for a bare moment, scanning over her partner’s face and body, freezing for a long moment on his right arm in a sling. She could read him reasonably well, and she saw no pain lines on his face— _pain meds_ —a situation that reduced her guilt by an iota.

“Hey, kid,” Clinton greeted her when she got close. Despite the unfortunate events of the day, his look was fond, and his greeting sincerely friendly.

_Unfortunate cannot begin to describe the levels of horrific-ness of this day._

Kateri let her gaze hover around the level of his collarbone in one of the few times in her partnership she’d ever had trouble making eye-contact with him. She had trouble with eye-contact sometimes when she was bothered or nervous or uneasy or particularly plagued by her claustrophobia or PTSS. The shrinks she sometimes had to visit on the orders of the bosses usually expounded that her trouble with eye-contact was due to personality disorders or some such nonsense, while Kateri was more inclined to blame it on long-ingrained self-preservation instincts from her childhood that still reared their ugly heads from time to time.

_Don’t make eye contact … and they might not lose it._

_…_

_Not that Clinton falls into that category._

_…_

_Shrinks are a pain in the rear._

_…_

_What does one even say to your partner after you shot him?_

“Hey,” Kateri scuffed one foot, unsure of how to even begin.

“Come one, let’s get inside. It’s getting late,” her partner said, motioning her to go up the stairs first. From the look on his face, it was clear there was much more he wanted to say. Kateri was just simply happy to delay any and all substantive conversation.

 _Your guilt is irrational_ , one side of her brain reminded her, _you did what you had to do_.

 _You shot your partner,_ the other side of her brain repeated. A mental refrain that still sent a lurch through her gut every time the thought crossed her mind, which was frequently.

No matter how many times Barnes told her that her partner wasn’t mad or angry at the situation or with her— _even though I shot him_ —Kateri was still not having an easy time believing her. Even when she got to that point, forgiving herself was still going to be a problem.

Problem #1 occurred as soon as they got to their room door. There were only 3 keys between the six team members, and Kateri didn’t have one.

“Key?” Kateri asked with a forced smile, holding out one hand and wiggling her fingers, trying to force herself to act somewhat normal. Playing a part was something she know how to do and do well. _The only problem is that Clinton can usually read me like an open book_.

Her partner set his bag down between his feet and fumbled somewhat awkwardly with his left hand to get the key out of his wallet. _The curse of being right-handed and having an injured right arm._

 _Thanks to you_.

Kateri was glad the door lock was one of those ones that you had to tap the key on, not insert. As they sometimes did after panic attack(s), her hands were shaking slightly … _again_ … _did they ever stop?_ … and she was not sure she would have been able to get a key inside that thin slot.

“Usual bed choice?” Clinton called, as Kateri was locking up the door for the night.

 _How late is it anyway?_ She had been fiddling with her watch a lot but had not actually been paying attention to the time.

“Unless you want to switch,” Kateri called back. _Shop talk, I can do that_.

“Nope.”

The room had two double beds. Some of those on the team preferred the bed closer to the AC unit; some preferred to be farther away from the AC. Clinton couldn’t care less, and Kateri, who was often a little cold, especially after (near-)panic attacks, usually preferred being farther away. _I'm still so cold._

Clinton had sat down on the far bed and was starting to untie his boots, when Kateri took a seat on the other bed, plopping her backpack down beside herself. During hunts, everyone just slept in their own clothes, only removing shoes or boots before going to bed. None of them cared if their clothes got a little wrinkled.

_Coats cover a multitude of wrinkles._

_Especially when wearing Kevlar._

“Need some help with that?” Kateri asked quietly, her eyes fixed on his other shoulder. Trying to make herself even look at the arm in the sling was hard.

Clinton smiled and shook his head, “I’ve got it. Thanks, though.”

There was one corner of her mind that was squawking the old instinctive thought that Clinton was being too nice to her when _you SHOT him!_ The rest of her mind was telling that one little corner to stop reacting like the scared kid fresh out of a bad foster home.

_Now I sound like the camp counsellor. Wouldn’t she be so proud!_

Silence returned to the room.

Kateri adjusted the pillows at her back so she could half-sit up, kicked off her boots, set her gun and holster on the near-half bedside table beside her, and then swung her legs onto the bed, settling down with her arms wrapped around her abdomen and her knees half pulled up to her chest.

_I think this is the most awkward period in our entire partnership._

The pattern of the threads on her britches was suddenly most interesting to study.

Kateri knew that she and her partner needed to talk and knew that he knew that they needed to talk. Talking about the warehouse, however, was really the last thing she wanted to do. The question was how long Clinton was going to let the silence linger before he decided not to wait any longer for her to make the opening statement.

“Please don’t do that.”

Of all the opening lines Kateri was expecting out of her partner, that was not one of them. The surprise was enough to make her actually look up, actually meet his eyes. Dark eyes met dark eyes but only for a second before Kateri looked away again.

Clinton was ready and willing to forgive her. She could see it in his face, his eyes, a mixture of forgiveness, pity, sympathy, and a few other emotions she couldn’t identify.

_I’m just not sure if I can forgive myself yet._

_I shot you!_

Family—true family, not just the legal kind—was something that Kateri held most supremely dear to her heart. She had no siblings, and her parents had died long ago in a car crash when she was just a kid. Ten years in foster care had made her plenty of contacts that had served in more recent years; a handful of ‘enemies’ (abusive foster siblings and classmates) whom she hoped to never meet again if she lived until she was 100; and only a few temporary friends that had not lasted past aging out of the system or going through college. Her foster parents had been a mixed bag, but all but one pair had honestly tried to be good parents, but she had been old enough to remember her own parents (though many of those memories had faded by now), and no one could replace those she had lost, and anyone trying just made her bitter and angry.

_I was not the greatest foster kid to deal with in the beginning._

Fast-forward to her years with the FBI. A series of bad partners, bad ops, and bad bosses had only increased minor loner tendencies and made her more suspicious and wary of working with a partner or trusting a team to watch her back. Then she had gotten loaned out for that one mission to the Fugitive Task Force, and in a week her life changed for the better.

Jess had recruited her within days after the mission ended, and life was never the same. She found a team she could trust, people she could trust to be her friends and always have her back. Kateri was not one to make her friends easily or extend her trust easily, but once you were her friend and she trusted you, it was almost always for life, and she repaid that friendship 10-fold.

What she had done that night cut to the quick of who she was, could have destroyed the family she would rather die for than lose. That it was Clinton who had gotten hurt because of her actions just drove the knife in deeper.

_Partners are supposed to have each other’s back, not shoot each other_. One part of her brain shouted.

_Guilt spirals_. Another part of her brain—the one that actually paid more attention to the FBI shrink(s)—yelled right back.

The shrinks sometimes found Kateri’s mistrust of shrinks to be an interesting topic of conversation. To Kateri the answer for her non-minority shrink was simple: you try being the troubled minority kid growing up in the foster system. Being viewed or labeled as a troubled kid—what exactly being “troubled” entailed did not always matter—was big trouble of its own.

After a minute Kateri realized that she hadn’t replied to her partner yet. She debated trying to deflect but concluded,

 _After today the least you owe him is honesty_.

“I shot you.”

“You grazed me,” Clinton corrected.

Kateri rolled her eyes. _A distinction without a difference. Don’t go lawyer on me._ “I was still the one who pulled the trigger.”

“It was an accident. You were trying to protect yourself and Hana and Lincoln,” Clinton noted patiently, taking off his gun and shifting his position on the other bed.

“ _I_ still shot _you_.”

_It would be bad enough if anyone else had pulled the trigger, but I’m your partner._

_I’m supposed to have your back, not shoot you_.

_I can’t lose you, too._

Part of her knew she was being ridiculous and stuck in a guilt rut. Part of her knew that she had done everything right in the warehouse, that she had made the best choice possible in a terrible situation.

Knowing that intellectually and accepting that, however, were two totally different issues.

Clinton sighed. _I probably would have lost my temper with myself in this situation_. Her partner did the exact opposite. He was silent for a long minute, and when he spoke again, it was evident he was picking his words extremely carefully, “Yes, you did. There’s no point in denying reality.”

Kateri made a face of reluctant agreement. _Hard to argue with that, as much as I might like to pretend the last few hours didn’t happen._

He continued, “You were under fire in a bad situation. If you had delayed, you or Hana or Lincoln could have been shot or killed. If our positions had been reversed, I doubt I would have done anything differently.”

_Now I know who Barnes was talking to at the bus_.

“Your point being?” Kateri asked, voice rough, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying not to cry … _again_.

“It’s a flesh wound. A few stiches and a bandage, and it was fine. I’ve had worse falling off of a horse,”— _that’s a story I almost want to hear_ … _later_ —”so, please,” his voice softened, “kid, don’t keep beating yourself up. I’m not angry with you.”

“I’m angry with myself!” Kateri replied, her voice rising in pitch. Dropping her hands, she had gone back to studying the weave of her pants in the low light. _Why is hotel room lighting always so bloody awful?_ “I’m your partner. I’m supposed to have your back, not shoot you, not be like …” She cut herself off with a snap of teeth and a flinch.

_Don’t think of the weasel._

Clinton, who had been the recipient of multiple rants and the occasional late-night confession about some of the SNAFU missions in Organized Crime and about one old partner of hers in particular, knew where her mind was going. “This was an accident, plain and simple. The circumstances are completely different. You are nothing like him. Kateri, look at me.” There was enough of the firm, parental-like tone in his voice on the last statement to make her finally look up, look over at him for the first time in minutes.

_After all these years, still instinct to respond to that tone._

_When it comes from you, especially._

“This was an accident, plain and simple. Accidents happened. Missions go bad. They’ll be debriefings and psych evals, and then we can put this behind us. Playing the what-if game with all its variations in your head is just going to destroy you. This was an accident. I’m okay. We’re going to be fine.”

_You really mean that?_

"Yes," her partner replied.

_Bloody h**l, I said that out loud._

_Bloody h**l_.

Kateri bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. The last thing she wanted to do right then was start crying. Sure her voice would break if she spoke, she nodded. It would take time to fully forgive herself, but his words were starting to make an impact.

Clinton got up slowly, a slight wince crossing his face as his arm was jostled. He crossed the two steps from one bed to the other and extended his uninjured arm in the offer of a hug, but only if she wanted to be touched.

_Definitely know who Barnes was talking to_.

She couldn’t even bring herself to be angry.

_I’m too tired to be angry anyway._

Kateri scooted forward so her legs were hanging over the edge of the bed. Her partner wrapped his good arm around her shoulders, and she tucked her cheek against his shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, trying not to cry.

“We good?” Clinton asked after a minute,

Kateri nodded.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” she replied honestly, the slightest of shakes to her voice, “but I’ll get there.”


End file.
